Squattocracy and Struggle weaves together family history with the turbulent birth of the union movement in the outback town of Bourke, as producer Sean O'Brien traces the story of his forebears Arthur and John Andrews. They were central in the creation of the Australian Workers Union, and have been immortalised in the verse of friend and ally Henry Lawson.

Video slideshows

Actor Lewis Fitzgerald reads the poetry and writing of Henry Lawson, inspired by the writer's travels to Bourke and the surrounding region in the summer of 1892-93. These are illustrated by historic and contemporary photographs.

Watch the slideshows in Windows Media Video format or download them as MP4 video.

Transcript

Men of Bourke, the world is moving, and you're moving with it, too,And you live a little faster than your fathers used to do;But although the bush was lonely, and the life was rather slow,Don't forget the vanished seasons on the Darling long ago. ... Henry Lawson

Sean O'Brien: My family, like many Australian families, has a small collection of precious keepsakes that link us with our forebears—sepia photographs, note-books, rosary beads, faded news-paper clippings. These artifacts give us a sense of our place in Australian history.

One of our most precious keepsakes was handed down from my Great-Grandfather, John Andrews, born in 1879. It's a small election pamphlet from 1917, when John ran as an anti-conscription Labor candidate for the seat of Armidale— the cover bears a striking photo of him, with intense gaze fixed to the horizon. The pamphlet's stirring rhetoric conveys John's political beliefs, social conscience, and experience—

John Andrews: Electors of Armidale, vote for John Andrews. Mr John Andrews is an Australian—an Australian who knows his country, and the things that are good for it, from A to Z. Especially is he conversant with the Bush and with the needs and rights of the men who, directly or indirectly, win their living from the land.

He has seen and personally experienced the woes of the capitalistically-exploited, and with a great and impelling belief he holds that only the ideas and the ideals of the great Labor Movement crystallised into the law of the land can reduce these woes, and ultimately bring them to an end.

Mr John Andrews has for many years been closely and actively identified with that greatest of great industrial organisations, the Australian Workers Union.

And in the course of those fifteen years he has held many positions of responsibility—positions that call for ability, tact, trustworthiness, and, at times, more than a little courage.

Sean O'Brien: On my mother's side, our family keepsakes link us to north-west New South Wales, and the township of Bourke. Here, in the 1890s on the 'frontier', my great-great grandfather, Arthur Andrews, and his son John Andrews were union men. John is said to have been, 'the youngest organiser ever to have set out to spread the Australian Workers Union gospel'. Arthur and John were friends with the Australian writer Henry Lawson, and feature in his poems. All were part of a time and place that helped shaped the political and social landscape of Australia.

I want to journey back more than 120 years, to 'vanished seasons on the Darling', and into the lives of the men of old Bourke.

My journey begins where the men of old Bourke still exist in living memory. In NSW Parliament House I meet with John Andrews' granddaughter, my cousin, Marie Andrews MP, Member for Gosford.

Marie Andrews: In my inaugural speech I made reference to my great-grandfather, Arthur Andrews, and my grandfather, John Andrews. I can remember John quite vividly. He was very active in the former Shearers' Union that went on to become the Australian Workers' Union. He was an organiser in the northern tablelands, and he stood for parliament as an anti-conscription Labor candidate. Memories of grandfather—he always reminded me of Santa Claus because he had white hair and always had a beard, which used to tickle us when we kissed him. He had a little lobby, a little library, over in Davies Street Leichhardt, where he lived with my grandmother, and a number of members of the family. He was a wonderful grandfatherly figure, and we had much respect for him, whenever he said something we took notice of him. So I can remember my father, Arthur Andrews, taking my grandfather, John Andrews, to the Sydney Town Hall so that grandfather could be acknowledged for his fifty consecutive years of membership of the NSW branch of the Australian Labor Party. That was a big occasion, photographs were taken of Grandfather and reproduced in the metropolitan press, and on that occasion my grandfather received a standing ovation from a thousand delegates to that conference. As you say, there's been continuing generations of Andrews who've been actively involved in the Australian Labor Party, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and myself.

Sean O'Brien: Do you think it's genetic, is it in the genes?

Marie Andrews: Well, bear in mind the ancestors came from Scotland, so I think the Celtic strain has had a very strong influence on our history.

Warren Fahey:

Hurrah, hurrah to the Union we'll adhere,Hurrah, hurrah we'll be stronger still next year,A pound a hundred for the sheep and rations not too dear,Hurrah for the Amalgamated Union.

I think that the Union movement sometimes forgets its own glorious past, and I think they need to be reminded, and so does the rest of the population, that unionism grew out of a desperate need for a fair go, and surely that's what this country's about.

Sean O'Brien: Social historian and folklorist Warren Fahey takes us back to the volatile landscape of rural Australia in the 1880s, when John Andrews was a young boy.

Warren Fahey: What this country was built on was really mateship during the gold rush days. Here, in the 1850s, you had this very, very unusual situation where all of a sudden thousands and thousands of men, and mainly men, were working for themselves. Now some of them made a lot of money, and some of them spent a lot of money—one of my old informants Rod Dawson used to say to me, 'Warren, there was a lot of gold out there but there was a bloody lot of earth mixed in with it.' But this period was important for us because it then led into the shearing, and the droving, and all the other industries that emerged after the gold petered out. Then we had this new gold, of wool, but the same thing applied, we had men being independent, but there was this continuing struggle from the 1860s onwards of who's master and who's man? A lot of the squatters were good, but there were some squatters who thought themselves lords, and they really had the power to mistreat the workers, and the workers knew that there was a better life than this. Rations were crook in many of the shearing sheds, they were paid by the numbers of sheep they shore, and there was a continuing struggle as the squatter always wanted to lower the rate, and the shearer always wanted to increase the rate.

Reading: [Pastoralists' announcement to shearers] The owners and managers of the undermentioned stations hereby give notice that the price for shearing during the current year will be 17/6 per 100 sheep, but if any shearer is discharged for willful bad shearing or other misconduct he shall accept payment at 15/- per 100 for all sheep shorn to date of discharge...Rations will be charged at a fixed rate. Pastoralists of the western district of New South Wales, 2nd April 1886.

Sean O'Brien: Current National Secretary of the Australian Workers' Union, Paul Howes:

Paul Howes: In Australia in the 1880s you had a boom period in the economy. The pastoralists were making fortunes that were beyond the belief of anywhere in the empire that existed at the time. In the 1880s Australia was the diamond of the empire. The pastoralists saw an opportunity at that period to make a few extra bob by essentially forcing shearers to compete with each other. That's the real essence of what it's about, forcing each worker to compete with each other on their wages. In the end this meant some people were literally working for free, for three square meals and a roof over their heads and a pouch of tobacco. But a large bulk of those workers thought that this was wrong, which really culminated in 1886 when you had the first formation of a national shearers' union, which took place in Ballarat. The Australasian Shearers' Union as it was called at the time was the first real domestic union and the first solidly national organisation, which then spread its wings very quickly. It's interesting to see the parallels in this repeating itself over and over again in history. All the large shearers' strikes that have taken place over the last 120 years always happened in a time of economic prosperity and a booming economy in the bush, but when pastoralists for some reason always thought they could get away with driving down wages and conditions. It's the same thing that happened in the 1956-57 shearers' strike—many of the same issues were the key issues we were fighting against in WorkChoices.

Warren Fahey:You call me a bastard, hell, what have I done?You scabbed you bastard in '91,And what's more, you lousy son of a whore,I know you scabbed again, in 1894.

Sean O'Brien: The Darling River in western NSW saw one of the most serious skirmishes in the war between the shearers on one side, and the pastoralists and free labourers on the other.

At the centre of the action was a riverboat, the paddle steamer Rodney, en route to Bourke in August 1894. Warren Fahey takes up the story:

Warren Fahey: The sinking of the Rodney—it was one of those events that really inflamed the shearers and the squatters. The Rodney was being kept in action by the use of scab labourers, and many of these scab labourers were pretty low life. They were brought down from the cities, from Melbourne and from Sydney. The Rodney passed this shearers' strike camp and the scab labourers started hooting and jeering at the shearers, there was a bit of a verbal fight. The shearers' strike camp decided this wasn't going to happen. When the Rodney tied up that evening, there were about a dozen shearers and they were planning to sink the Rodney and tie up the scabs in the hold of the riverboat.

So they turned their clothes inside out and they covered themselves with mud looking like blobs, and they lowered themselves into the water, and at 4 in the morning they crept up upon the Rodney. But the captain thought that there was something in the air so he had a watchman on duty, and the watchman spied this muddy head coming out of the water, but the shearers did actually get onto the boat, and they captured the Rodney. The bit that I love is that when the Rodney was being sunk, one of the shearers, according to the news, was playing the concertina, and played 'After the Ball is Over', sitting on the riverbank as the ship went down. It's a great little story.

Sean O'Brien: In the late 1880s, my great-great grandfather, Arthur Andrews, was living on his father's property on the Hay Plains of NSW. With a young family to support—wife Bridget, daughter Maggie, and sons John and Edward—Arthur decided to travel up to Bourke, to make a go of it there.

By 1890, Bourke was firmly established as a wool town and major commercial port on the Darling River. And trouble was brewing. Local Bourke historian Paul Roe:

Paul Roe: Bourke was a very remote town right at the top of the Darling, although oddly enough it was settled mostly from Adelaide and Melbourne. So most of the early capital was big investment from the wealthy in Adelaide and Melbourne. It wasn't until 1885 that they quickly pushed a railway through from Sydney when they saw most of the trade going out the back door. And you can still see in Bourke there are vestiges of the huge investment—the London Bank is sitting there, and there were several big banks like that. In the 1870s the main store in town was doing a million pounds in trade, because Bourke was the main stopping off point for the riverboats, then they'd distribute all that out west of Bourke and up north into Queensland. There was a feeling of bonanza; here was this empty country they could fill up with sheep, and cattle, and horses. People were carving out these huge kingdoms. Samuel McGaughy at Toorale had probably the biggest sheep station in the world in the 1880s. So it was kind of reckless, and people were fairly naïve about what could happen out there, they just saw an endless bonanza and didn't really understand the country. And with it of course you needed the men to sink the tanks and put in the fences, and look after the sheep and shear them. So that brought a lot of those free spirited blokes, a lot of whom were left over from the gold rushes, and you did tend to get that divide, between the people who owned the stations, and these humble workers who were moving up and down the country doing the hard slog and carrying their swags. You could understand how in the times spent in the huts or on the road they'd be talking it up and saying 'we're being exploited here, we're being short-changed, it's a rough deal we're getting here.' You can imagine it was a synthesis of that mateship clinging together and standing in solidarity against the boss—they were heady days, some amazing things happened in the streets of Bourke.

For time means tucker, and tramp if they must,where the plains and scrubs are wide,With seldom a track that a man can trust,Or a mountain peak to guide;All day long in the flies and heat The men of the outside track With stunted stomachs and blistered feet Must carry their swags Out Back. ... Henry Lawson

Warren Fahey: For many years we'd been given our histories by the English armchair historians—we were getting an English perspective of who we were. We were never comfortable with it obviously, because when in the 1880s The Bulletin started to publish Australian stories and poetry, and encouraged contributions from average bush people they were flooded by everybody's stories. And when people like Henry Kendall, and Henry Lawson, and Banjo Patterson started to write and give us back, especially verse, that talked about us that we felt really excited about being Australians.

Sean O'Brien: The grave of Australian writer Henry Lawson is ten minutes walk from my house—he rests in Sydney's Waverly Cemetery, overlooking the blue pacific ocean. A plaque on his grave reads—Henry Lawson, Poet, journalist & patriot, born 17th June 1867, died 2nd September 1922. Loved by those who knew him. Honoured for generations.

Robyn Burrows grew up in Bourke, and together with her late father, Alan Barton, wrote the definitive account of Henry Lawson's visit to Bourke, A Stranger on the Darling. Robyn:

Robyn Burrows: Back in the early 1890s Henry Lawson was about 25 years old. He had originally come from the bush, around the Mudgee area, but he'd been living in Sydney for quite a few years and had been forging a growing career as a city poet. Lawson was writing for the Bulletin. The Bulletin was probably the most significant literary journal in Australia at that time. It was partly owned by a gentleman by the name of JF Archibald who was also the editor. The issues that the Bulletin covered were mainly Australian news, politics and economics. It also provided an outlet for work by many up-and-coming literary writers at the time, such as Lawson and Patterson. The assignment for Henry Lawson to travel out to the bush came about in this way—Henry was drinking, fairly heavily, so Archibald offered Lawson a one-way rail ticket to Bourke, valued at £4. This was presumably to get Lawson out of the city and put him in a new environment for writing. Why Bourke? Bourke was a fairly obvious choice—the politics of the town were worth commenting on as there was a large Labor presence in that town. Bourke was also a hotbed of friction between the Amalgamated Shearers' Union and the pastoralists, in regards to the shearing rates of pay, conditions of employment and so on.

When your money is low, and your luck has gone down,There's no place so lone as the streets of a town;There's nothing but worry, and dread and unrest,So we'll over the ranges and into the West. ... Henry Lawson

Readings from 'In a Dry Season' by Henry Lawson: Draw a wire fence and a few ragged gums, and add some scattered sheep running away from the train. Then you'll have the bush all along the New South Wales western line from Bathurst on...

Along about Byrock, we saw the first shearers. They dress like the unemployed, but differ from that body in their looks and independence...Here we came across soft felt hats with straps around the crowns, and full bearded faces under them.

At 5.30 we saw a long line of camels moving across the sunset. There;s something snaky about camels. They remind me of turtles and goannas.

Somebody said, 'Here's Bourke'.

Robyn Burrows: So Henry Lawson arrived in Bourke around the 21st of September in 1892. He stepped off the train about 5 o'clock in the afternoon and later that night he wrote a letter to his Aunt Emma in Sydney.

Reading from Henry Lawson's letters:Great Western Hotel, Bourke. Sept. 21, 1892 Dear Aunt,Struck Bourke this afternoon at 5 and am staying as above...The bush between here and Bathurst is horrible. I was right, and Banjo wrong. Country very dry and dull, but I am agreeably disappointed with Bourke. It is a much nicer town than I thought it would be. I got a lot of very good points for copy on the way up. Think I'll be able to hang out all right. Board and lodgings £1 per week, and very good. Might take a job here if I see a chance. Had several interviews with Bushmen on the way up. Most of them hate the bush. Had a great argument with a shearer about the number of sheep a man can shear in a day. I know nothing about the business, but he did not know that. I have already found out that Bushmen are the biggest liars that ever Lord created. Took notes all the way up. I took a stroll out to find the Darling but haven't found it yet. Hope you will pull through. Keep up your heart.Yours the same,Henry Lawson

Sean O'Brien: Lawson was strongly drawn to the Darling, and the next day went in search again, and turning left and straight down Richard Street, found the River this time—the Darling was to feature as a recurring image in Lawson's poetry:

The sky is brass, and the scrub-lands glare,Death and ruin are everywhere;Thrown high to bleach, or deep in the mud The bones lie buried by last year's flood.And the Demons dance from the Never Never To laugh at the rise of the Darling River. ... Henry Lawson

Sean O'Brien: I take my own walk along the banks of the Darling, with local guide Stuart Johnson—despite the drought, the river holds some water -

Stuart Johnson:We're actually standing on the banks of the beautiful Darling River. Beautiful coolibah trees, river red gums, usually a few kangaroos getting around and a few red tailed black cockatoos flying around, and maybe a few wedge tails. Lots of beautiful bird life with over 160 different types of birds hovering around here somewhere.

Sean O'Brien: Back in the late 1800s, give us an idea of what would have been happening in Bourke in those days.

Stuart Johnson:Yes it was bustling, there would have been some 5,000 people here. The paddle boats coming up the Darling River, the ladies with their beautiful dresses and parasols, getting off the boat and they're going to go into town to do their shopping. You can imagine the people bustling around here, off-loading the stores from the paddle boats, then re-loading the boats with wool and getting great money for it. Yes, a thriving river-port town with great wealth and wool. You've only got to look around behind you Sean to see some of the beautiful buildings such as the London Bank built in 1888, just to understand that at one time there was more money in Bourke's banks than even Sydney itself. And we had something like 29 pubs. Henry Lawson summed it up pretty well in the early days by calling it mateship country, and when he said 'if you know Bourke you know Australia', that really brings in the whole concept of what it's really about out here. We all had to get on, the only way back was on the train, and you'd all be together, otherwise get on your horse sunshine and away you go. But even when you were fighting each other in the pub, the shenanigans of the hotel, you were still mates afterwards—you'd beat the crap out of each other then go and have a drink together and say 'that was all right'.

They drank, when all is said and done, they gambled,And their speech was rough.You'd only need to say of one—'He was my mate!'That was enough.To hint a bushman was not white, nor to his Union straight and true,'T'would mean a long and bloody fight in Ninety-one and Ninety-two

The yard behind the Shearer's Arms was reckoned best of battlegrounds,And there in peace and quietness they fought their ten or fifteen rounds;And then they washed the blood away, and then shook hands, as strong men do,And washed away the bitterness—in Ninety-one and Ninety-two. ... Henry Lawson

Sean O'Brien: Lawson drank at the pubs frequented by the union men. Bourke was considered the de-facto union headquarters in New South Wales and the names of the leading union men have become legendary within the movement—Donald MacDonell, Tommy White, Thomas Hicks Hall, Billy Wood, Hugh Langwell, and my own forebears, Arthur and John Andrews.

Robyn Burrows: Once Lawson arrived in Bourke, he gravitated to the union men. The union men symbolised Lawson's concept of mateship, which was something that was prominent in a lot of his writing. There's references in a couple of Lawson's poems to a young union activist by the name of John Andrews, and he was said to have been the youngest man to have been involved in unionism at the time. He was thought to have been about 13 years old, so he was very young, and he was literate, he could read and write very well, also, despite his age, he was very passionate about unionism in Bourke. His father was Arthur Andrews, and he was also involved in the union movement.

Sean O'Brien: Bourke's leading newspaper, the Western Herald, covered all the union news. The paper's owner, Edward Davis Millen, is said to have had sympathy for the union cause. The paper contains the first published references to my great-great grandfather, Arthur Andrews, who in 1892 was both chairman of the Amalgamated Shearers' Union, and vice-president of the newly formed General Labourers' Union. Just prior to Henry Lawson's arrival, Bourke had been the battleground for some of the most dramatic events in Australia's union history, as striking shearers stood their ground.

Paul Roe: Two groups of scab shearers arrived by train in Bourke, and there were big camps of striking shearers across the river, I've heard up to 800. So when the scabs arrived at the station, the shearers marched on the station, and they booed and jeered and 'persuaded' the scabs to join them, and about two thirds of them did, but then the other third had to walk out to North-Bourke to get on the steamer, led by one of the pastoralists. The shearers walked with them all the way, if you can picture it, booing and jeering, knockin' blokes over and sitting on their swags and throwing them in the river. I think they knocked the pastoralist off his horse going across the Billabong Bridge, so it was quite violent.

Reading from The Western Herald: At the Billabong Bridge, which had to be traversed, it looked as if a serious disturbance would occur...Repeated efforts were made to pull men even off the gangway itself. Mr Nutting, manager of Fort Bourke station, was surrounded by a mob and received several blows. Mr Nutting proceeded to lay about him with a stick...One of the troopers was seen to draw a revolver, and a deep howl was raised. At length the scramble for the free laborers, for it was nothing less, being over, the steamer put off, followed by a few parting howls. As she did so two or three men jumped overboard and swam ashore. Of the 350 men who are supposed to have arrived by train not more than about 100 embarked. After the departure of the steamer the crowd wended its way back to town, evidently well pleased with the result of the morning's work. The union camp has been formed on the opposite side of the river, and a large crowd assembled at the punt to witness the process of conveying the seceders and their luggage over to their new quarters, the operation being repeatedly cheered.

The Reverend RS Willis, assisted by the Salvation Army, conducted a religious service at the shearers' camp. The men accorded them a hearty welcome. The Rev. preached: (Matthew Chapter 5 Verse 25) 'Agree with thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way with him.' These are the words of One whom we are bound to acknowledge of His wisdom... and they contain advice that is good at the present time for both the squatter and the shearers.

Robyn Burrows: The really interesting thing about Henry Lawson that was discovered a hundred years later, is that while he was in Bourke during the first couple of weeks, he wrote at least seven, maybe eight poems for the local newspaper, The Western Herald, under the pseudonym of Tally. No-one had ever seen these poems in modern times, and they had never been published outside the Western Herald. The poems themselves are interesting because apart from one, called 'A Stranger on the Darling', they were all very political poems.

Reading from Henry Lawson's letters: Great Western Hotel, Bourke, 27th September 1892.Dear Aunt, This is a queer place. The ladies shout. A big jolly-looking woman—who, by-the-way, is the landlady of a bush pub—marched into the bar this morning, and asked me to have a drink. This is a fact; so help me, Moses! She came in a waggonette.

I am doling a little work, sub rosa, for the Western Herald. Will send a copy tomorrow. The editor sent for the [union[ leaders to give me some points for a political poem. The chaps have seen the proof and are delighted. Will make about £1 1s. this week. The editor wanted to give me credit, but I preferred to keep dark for awhile. There'll be a sensation when his paper comes out tomorrow. The (union) men say that nothing hits like a rhyme...

Your affectionate nephew,Henry Lawson

Sean O'Brien: Lawson was referring to a stoush between the Western Herald and the rival Bourke paper, the Central Australian, which had been attacking the union men through the writing of the paper's resident poet, 'Smoko. Not to be outdone, ED Millen commissioned Lawson to write a rebuttal for the Western Herald. Lawson grabbed the opportunity to defend the union men, while attacking the penmanship of 'Smoko'.

You are foolish, Mr 'Smoko'; better go and learn a trade Than be writing at the bidding of the Number One Brigade;You are harmless in your sneaking little dab at Tommy White,For the labourers have tried him and they find that he's all right.With regard to Phil and Edward, your impotent 'allee same',

And you say of Hall and Andrews that they're living on the game.You are foolish when you said it, and you went a bit too far,I can only say in answer 'you're a liar', there you are;

With regard to Hall and Andrews, you should really be discreet,They are not the sort of fellows to be humming for a seat;But they won't remain inactive, neither will they speak in vain,When a certain gang of traitors try for Parliament again. .. Henry Lawson

Sean O'Brien: Contemporary Bourke writer/musician Andrew Hull...

Andrew Hull:West was the chance of adventure and romance, and a life that was not handed down,Where the idealistic, and the unrealistic, could escape from both rank and renown,The future unplanned, save for the hope of a land that would be borderless, and open, and blessed,So men without fear, gave up their kin and their career, to rebuild themselves in the west.

But west was the space where respect earned a place, and men stuck to men as a creed,And those with the drive, could prosper and thrive, and they could take over title and deed,And then here was a land, where an empire was planned, and fortunes that few men could have guessed,So bridges got burnt, and lessons went unlearnt, as industry came to the west.

Sean O'Brien: Andrew, one tradition that you're carrying on is bush poetry. Can you tell us about the inspiration that you find in the tradition of bush poetry?

Andrew Hull: Rhyming verse has always resonated with me. They run a great little trek out of town here, called the Poets Trek, where they follow in Lawson's footsteps. Now, I just went on this as the tourist experience, as a bit of fun, but this is where I got exposed to Lawson's writing. It was a really profound experience for me to go to a place that had directly influenced a poem, and knowing that it was in my backyard, that it was my patch, to go and sit in a shed where Lawson had worked, and read Lawson's writing about shearers, and shearing sheds and Union men. For example that poem, 'All Unyun Men', and you look across at the shearers' bunks, where they all camped, and in that poem it had the sign up 'all union men', in this part of the quarters. It could have come directly from there. It really resonated very strongly with me that words can relate directly to landscape, that they can be of a place.

'Twas a big shed on the Darlin'-The Unyuns know it well,But mighty few in the Unyuns knew about the thing I tell.'Twuz a great shed for free labour,And the chaps was all aware,And the rep. wuz told that he'd best not try,His funny bizzness there.

But the rep. wuz straight, an' the rep. hed grit,He tried his funny biz:He shoved the cause along a bit With three square mates of his.The bunks stood in a corner -'Twuz called the 'Unyun Den' -And on the post they pasted The sign: 'ALL UNION MEN' ... Henry Lawson

Sean O'Brien: Lawson had struck out from Bourke, and walked down the track to the huge property of Toorale, to experience life as a 'rouseabout in the shearing sheds.

Following in Lawson's footsteps, I visit the Toorale woolshed as it is today, collapsing back into the black soil. Current station manager Tony McManus:

Tony McManus: Toorale is on the Darling River, so that was a major area that was first developed out here, and it was 1860 when they first got going out here, and 1890 was when it really started to hit its straps with a lot of buildings and infrastructure. Sir Samuel McGaughey owned it, it was 1.5 million acres at the turn of the century, it ran a lot of sheep, I read in one year it shore 230,000 sheep.

Sean O'Brien: Tony, can you tell us about this woolshed that we're standing in?

Tony McManus: This is the old original Toorale woolshed, built about 1880. It's 46 stands in a straight line, which is pretty unusual, all made of timber and steel frame, which is pretty unusual for back then too. It's starting to collapse now due to lack of use for the last 30 or 40 years.

Sean O'Brien: Would this have been a big shed for the time?

Tony McManus: I think it was the only shed. They shore all the sheep for miles around here, probably 60, 70, 80 miles, in all directions. Sheep were brought in here from Wanaaring, all the way in, all from the one property of Toorale, from the outstations, mustered up in big mobs and brought in and shorn. The wool was washed, put on paddle steamers and sent to Adelaide.

Sean O'Brien: What was the life of a shearer back then?

Tony McManus: Temperatures here in January are well into the 40s, and you can get weeks of above 40 degree temperature and very dry, and there was no air-conditioning, and it would have been hard work, and only the strong would have survived. There were plenty of shearers, and less work than there were shearers, they just traveled from shed to shed hoping to get a pen, and they turned up hoping to god they'd be given a job, if they didn't they hung around and waited until hopefully someone left. And if you got a pen you hung onto it. The Unions no doubt did a very good thing, but it would have been at a time when there was a lot of conflict.

Sean O'Brien: This woolshed is famous for one particular 'rouseabout who passed through...

Tony McManus: Yeah, Henry Lawson was here at one stage before the turn of the century, and he was here for three months and 'rouseabouted here, so he would have stepped these boards where we are now. It would have been hot and sweaty, and he was a fair way down the pecking order.

Sean O'Brien: Do we know much about his feelings that he took away from the experience, has he written about it?

Tony McManus: if you read some of his poetry and verse, I don't think he was terribly enthusiastic about living and working out in these tin sheds out in the middle of nowhere in the extreme heat and dusty conditions. I think he thought it was a hell on earth. But he spent three months here and made it, walked here and walked back to Bourke, and then up to Hungerford, so he certainly experienced it first hand.

Sean O'Brien: Tell us about the Henry Lawson poem 'The Boss's Boots', that I think was inspired by his time in this shed.

Tony McManus: Lawson wrote a few poems here, but the one about the boss's boots was about how the shearers spend most of their day bent over shearing, and you don't get much of a view of life while you're bent over, only the feet that are going past you, and the boss's boots were always something to be conscious of. Of course there was a prank played by the changing of boots. It certainly happened here, and was a great indication of what Lawson observed and he put it down, so that's a great record.

The shearers squint along the pens, they squint along the 'shoots';The shearers squint along the board to catch the Boss's boots;They have no time to straighten up, they have no time to stare,But when the Boss is looking on, they like to be aware.

The 'rouser' has no soul to save. Condemn the rouseabout!And sling 'em in, and rip 'em through, and get the bell-sheep out;And skim it by the tips at times, or take it with the roots,But 'pink 'em' nice and pretty when you see the Boss's boots. ... Henry Lawson

Sean O'Brien: Properties such as Toorale and Dunlop were the size of European countries. Many regarded this as the land locked up. In Bourke, in the spring of 1893, two months before an exhausted Henry Lawson returned to Sydney, WG Spence proposed a bold plan to break the pastoralists hold on the west. My great-great grandfather, Arthur Andrews, was present.

Reading from The Western Herald: April 11th, 1893. A big meeting

On Monday night there was a very large attendance at the Bijou theatre. Mr Arthur Andrews, chairman of the Amalgamated Shearers', Union took the platform, and said they all knew the purpose for which they had met, and that was to hear Mr William Guthrie Spence speak on the subject of 'Land for the people'.

Mr Spence, being well received, said that, 'There is a need for change. Australia is becoming a land of syndicates and monopolists. We have often heard of the term "wool-kings" as applied to the squatters, but I ask, how many of them are not in the hands of the Banks? To remedy this drift I support the idea of village communal settlements, to be aided by the State. We have here on the banks of the River Darling a very great advantage. If the State assists us to get on the land, we have plenty of water at hand for irrigation purposes, and if we go into this on a co-operative basis it will be better for all concerned.'

Sean O'Brien: In 1895 the village settlement of Pera Bore was established about 20 miles out of Bourke, on the edge of the great grey plain. Crops were to be irrigated by bore water, the first controversial attempt to do so in Australia. Together with about 20 others, Arthur Andrews took up a plot on the settlement—the Western Herald reported on the progress:

Reading from The Western Herald: They described Pera as a howling desert, the water of its bore a malignant fountain of corroding soda, as devastating as Vesuvius. They declared that the men who were known to be waiting to acquire certain of the blocks were being lured to their destruction by the mirage of outrageous misrepresentations. But today there is no spot in the whole Western Division so pleasing to look at, or so full of bright promise as the little settlement that has taken root around the Pera Bore.

On the first block in the line of march is Mr Arthur Andrews, a Bourke resident of some years standing. He was one of the earliest to publicly evince a belief in small irrigation farms. Going onto the land with practically no capital but hands used to work and a determined will, Mr Andrews may be honestly proud of what he has done in his time with the aid of his two lads, John and Edward. Mr Andrews has three acres under fruit, and has cropped about the same area of millet. From his vegetable plot he has sent away considerable supplies, from which he has derived an income that has not only satisfied him financially but has confirmed his faith in the possibilities of an irrigation block. Like his neighbours, Mr Andrews is satisfied with his venture and extremely hopeful.

Sean O'Brien: In January 1893, WG Spence was in Bourke again, to address one of the most crucial meetings in Australia's Union history. The meeting was chaired by Arthur Andrews, and his son John was there in the packed hall...

Reading from The Western Herald: At the annual meeting of the Bourke Branch of the General Labourers' Union, held in Drew's Hall Thursday last, Mr WG Spence gave an exhaustive explanation of the proposal for amalgamating the Shearers and Labourers' Unions. The work of the two Unions was inseparable and if it was formed into one large body it would result in a much better system of organisation.

The 'Australian Workers' Union', the proposed name of the amalgamated bodies, would include provision for organising female labour, and he, for one, would be glad to welcome them into the ranks of organised workers. The moral influence which could and would be exerted by the organisation of women was enormous, and he was sure the honest judgment of the members would approve the scheme.

Are you in favor of the amalgamation of the Amalgamated Shearers' Union of Australasia and the General Laborers' Union of Australasia, and becoming part of the proposed 'Australian Workers' Union'?—For, 787; against, 26. The motion is carried.

Sean O'Brien: National Secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Paul Howes...

Paul Howes: My personal view is that Spence saw the union as being far more than just an organisation representing shearers in regional Australia. He saw the potential for a general large Union in this country controlling the forces of labour to exercise industrial power but also substantial political power. Spence at the time said, at a union convention, and it's a line that's just as relevant to now as it was back then, the working man must take his proper place in the nation. And I think that really sums up Spence's philosophy—he believed that through the power of the union, we could actually lift the status of working people in this country. And the AWU today is still the oldest domestic union, the only union that can claim all of its heritage as being here in Australia. The union movement changed the country in the way where any ordinary Australian could become prime minister, where it didn't matter about your bloodline, it didn't matter about your wealth to get to the leadership of our nation. The philosophy that our union had, that we need to build a country for everyone, really was the driving philosophy of the Labor Party in the end, and you hear Kevin Rudd saying it today, here is a government that will rule for all Australians. That has always been the Labor Party call, you go back to Hawke, to Keating, to Whitlam, to Curtin, to Chifley, and that is because it is our fundamental philosophy that the democratic processes of democratising capitalism is the best way to achieve outcomes for working people in this country.

Sean O'Brien: By federation, my great-grandfather John Andrews had come into his own, first as the chairman of the Australian Workers Union in Bourke, and then as a member of the Labor Party. John had met and married May Walkden from Stoney Rise just outside of Bourke. Around 1912 they moved to Armidale on the NSW Northern Tablelands, to start a family. As the First World War approached, John could see disaster looming for the young working men of Australia—Prime Minister Billy Hughes was agitating for conscription, a stance that would split the Labor Party.

Billy Hughes was known as the little digger, and he really did move around the country a lot, campaigning and bashing the drum for conscription. He was considered a bit of a dog by the labour movement, and there probably wasn't anybody who had joined so many political parties or had been part of so many factions as Billy Hughes. He advocated socialism, but as soon as he got into power he persecuted socialists, and he led trade unions, then he beat them into submission. He had his enemies apart from just the average working man—Cardinal Mannix was campaigning against conscription, and he brought in all those Celtic-Catholics against Hughes, and Catholics were also the basis of the Labor Party, so they came into conflict with Hughes there. Generally Hughes was just seen as a rat.

Sean O'Brien: And this is where one of our most precious family keepsakes enters history—John Andrews' 1917 election pamphlet. John ran for federal parliament on an anti-conscription platform, in the same year his younger brother Edward was killed in action on the battlefield in Belgium...

Reading from John Andrews' election pamphlet: Electors of Armidale, vote for John Andrews. Mr Andrews has long been a keen political student—and not only a student, but a man of action. He has the energy and the courage to translate his philosophy into deeds. This was strikingly evidenced in 1913, when Mr Andrews saw signs of the coming Great Labor Betrayal. He insisted on an enquiry into the bona-fides of several Laborites whom he more than suspected of being potential, if not actual, traitors. Unfortunately, these men were given another chance. But their apostasy since show how correct was Mr Andrews' summing-up of the situation.

In the big fight against Conscription, Mr Andrews was one of the stalwarts. His activity made converts wherever he went.

Mr Andrews' past is an index to his future. The insight, foresight, pluck, persistency, and reliability that have carried him so far can be depended on to make him a legislator worthy of the electorate of Armidale and the great Movement he represents.

Marie Andrews: My grandfather John Andrews stood for parliament as an anti-conscription Labor candidate. He was a man of great principle and very much opposed to Billy Hughes who was the prime minister at the time. When you think about it, being a candidate when the Labor Party was split I think would have been really difficult, it would have been very difficult for the family. I do recall my mother telling me that my grandmother, grandfather's wife May, was very upset. She was a convert to Catholicism, and she was very upset and asked grandfather to withdraw when one of his election pamphlets came back to the household with a pair of rosary beads drawn around grandfather's neck. My grandmother was very emotionally upset about that incident. But anyway, grandfather, to his great credit, went on to contest the seat, and although he was narrowly defeated, he was able to hold up his head high amongst his local community. John Andrews proudly remained in the mainstream of the Australian Labor Party, and went on to become a member of the state executive of the Labor Party and of course was very active and highly respected within the Australian Workers' Union.

Reading from The Westgate Weekly News: February 6th, 1958. ALP Pioneer Dies. A pioneer of the ALP in New South Wales died last week at his home in Davies Street, Leichardt. He was Mr John Andrews, aged 79 years. Mr Andrews attended every ALP conference in the past half century. He represented the AWU, of which he was a former organiser. Some years ago Mr Andrews contested the Armidale seat as the ALP candidate and was narrowly defeated.

He is survived by his wife May, five sons, Arthur, Donald, Thomas, John and William, and three daughters, Margaret, Janet and Mary. Many Mourned. Many veteran rank and file members of the ALP were present at the Requiem Mass in St. Thomas' Church, Lewisham, and at the burial in the Catholic Cemetery, Rookwood.

Sean O'Brien: My journey concludes where again, the men of old Bourke exist in living memory—John Andrews' granddaughter, my mother, Patricia...

Patricia O'Brien: I have here a little note book titled 'My Friends' Confessions'. It's a very old book, and my guess is it was the fashion at the time to get one's friends to fill in their confessions. And there's one entry here, the confessions of my grandfather, John Andrews, dated the 24th of the 5th 1910, and it's in his own handwriting. I'll just read out a couple of the questions and grandfather's replies. The first question is 'Which are your favourite qualities in man?', to which he responds 'Honesty'. 'Which is your favourite virtue?', his answer 'Truthfulness'. 'Which is your favourite motto?', 'Do it Now!'. And this is my favourite, 'What do you consider the noblest aim in life?', His answer, 'To leave it better than you found it', and I believe he did.

And could I roll the summers back, Or bring the dead time on again,Or from the grave the world-wide track,Call back to Bourke the vanished men,With mind content I'd go to sleep, and leave those mates to judge me true,And leave my name to Bourke to keep—the Bourke of Ninety-one and Ninety-two. ... Henry Lawson, Bourke.